cretion with
straight whisky, drunk in quantity. I hadn't. I still laboured under
the misconception that one was to drink all he could get--especially when
it didn't cost anything. We shared our bottles with others, and drank a
good portion ourselves, while I drank most of all. And I didn't like the
stuff. I drank it as I had drunk beer at five, and wine at seven. I
mastered my qualms and downed it like so much medicine. And when we
wanted more bottles, we went into other saloons where the free drink was
flowing, and helped ourselves.

I haven't the slightest idea of how much I drank--whether it was two
quarts or five. I do know that I began the orgy with half-pint draughts
and with no water afterward to wash the taste away or to dilute the
whisky.

Now the politicians were too wise to leave the town filled with drunks
from the water-front of Oakland. When train time came, there was a
round-up of the saloons. Already I was feeling the impact of the whisky.
Nelson and I were hustled out of a saloon, and found ourselves in the
very last rank of a disorderly parade. I struggled along heroically, my
correlations breaking down, my legs tottering under me, my head swimming,
my heart pounding, my lungs panting for air.

My helplessness was coming on so rapidly that my reeling brain told me I
would go down and out and never reach the train if I remained at the rear
of the procession. I left the ranks and ran down a pathway beside the
road under broad-spreading trees. Nelson pursued me, laughing. Certain
things stand out, as in memories of nightmare. I remember those trees
especially, and my desperate running along under them, and how, every
time I fell, roars of laughter went up from the other drunks. They
thought I was merely antic drunk. They did not dream that John
Barleycorn had me by the throat in a death-clutch. But I knew it. And I
remember the fleeting bitterness that was mine as I realised that I was
in a struggle with death, and that these others did not know. It was as
if I were drowning before a crowd of spectators who thought I was cutting
up tricks for their entertainment.

And running there under the trees, I fell and lost consciousness. What
happened afterward, with one glimmering exception, I had to be told.
Nelson, with his enormous strength, picked me up and dragged me on and
aboard the train. When he had got me into a seat, I fought and panted so
terribly for air that even with his